“i want to say thank you to my girlfriend. she’s too young to remember when i played in pittsburgh”… at least we have this. the boys giggling on the bench at jagr’s joke about his 22-years-younger girlfriend
“Hey, they still call you The Kid? Aren’t you old for that?”
“Anyone ever tell you to respect your elders?”
“Not bad. How about we take it outside though?”
“Oh yeah, just tell me when and where.”
But to suggest MacKinnon doesn't pay attention to the world around him would be inaccurate -- because he does. Especially when the conversation turns to what happened at the NHL All-Star Game back in February. More specifically, when he and Crosby posed for a picture with Justin Bieber.
Bieber stood between Crosby and MacKinnon with the pop star leaning closer to Crosby. The running joke on social media was that Bieber was going to crop MacKinnon out of the photo.
And then the joke became reality. Bieber posted several pictures from All-Star Weekend, including one of just him and Crosby, with the only vestige of MacKinnon being his right shoulder and his No. 29.
Others noticed. The most-liked comment on Bieber's feed was about MacKinnon, with someone writing, "damn mackinnon got the crop." It led to several responses ranging from, "what'd he ever do to you justin" to "i'm not even an avs fan and this hurts me lol."
Another person chimed in to say, "but I mean ... It's Crosby ..." followed by someone else stating "but its also mackinnon. Who eventually will be a hall of famer."
So what does MacKinnon think of all this?
"Yeah, I don't blame him," MacKinnon said with a smile. "It's Sidney Crosby! He's an icon! A Canadian icon! I get it. I'm not like a household name. I know that, and that's OK. It's just funny to me. I'm not offended. Justin seemed like a nice guy."